Physical, Mental, Emotional: a Shikamaru Oneshot
by Singergirl010
Summary: Yuki has always felt abandoned and alone. However, after an accident occurs, she realizes she may not be as alone as she always thought.


Name: Yuki

Age: 13

Looks: long black hair; green eyes; burn scar on her left shoulder;

Personality: puts on a happy face, but is actually very depressed and lonely; has pyrophobia (fear of fire)

Past: Yuki's father died saving Yuki and her mother from their burning house when Yuki was seven. He never made it out. Yuki started getting depressed after that.

* * *

Everyone thinks that I am perfectly normal. They think I am the sweetest, kindest girl that they have ever met. They think that I am made of sugar and spice and everything nice. They think that I am brimming over with happiness and love… but I'm not. I am not normal. I am depressing and emotionless. I hate happy people. They live in little bubbles, absolutely blind to the sadness of the world. I hate that too: the world.

Well, at least I used to hate the world… or was it that the world hated me? I guess if the world hates you that you in turn begin to hate it.

My father died when I was 7 years old. He died saving my mother and me from our burning home. He never made it out. My mother stopped talking and eating for a while after that. I didn't understand at the time what had happened. All I understood was that he was gone. I thought that they all meant that he was on a mission. But the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, and still he didn't come back. The months turned to years and he still did not return.

After a while my mother got better and eventually I began to understand that my father wasn't on a mission. He was dead. After I knew that I became more and more quiet and found myself seeking solitude more often. Eventually I found myself alone. I didn't want to be alone, yet I also didn't want to be with others. So I stayed alone and friendless.

I stayed alone and friendless when we were put into our Genin teams, shying away from my team mates Choji, Ino, and Shikamaru, and my sensei Asuma.

My depression kept growing inside until it became too much to bear. I needed an outlet for my mental pain. How did I decide to fight my mental pain? With physical pain.

I began coming to practice early and staying later than the others each day practicing until I was almost completely depleted of my energy and chakra. I would never stay out too late as to worry my mother, both wanting her to find out and not to at the same time. Each day I would act as normally as I always did, as falsely happy as I always did; get up, have breakfast, make my lunch, say good bye, and go to practice. I'd begin practicing different jutsus until my team had arrived and practice whatever it was Asuma-sensei wanted us to do. I would continue during our lunch break, giving my food to Choji. After practice ended I would continue my practicing into the late evening, seven o'clock or so, before returning home, but if I knew my mother wouldn't be home I would practice later, until 11 o'clock or even midnight upon occasion.

I also began using my kunai for something other than throwing: cutting. The physical pain of my skin being sliced hurt less than the mental pain I felt inside. I only ever cut my wrist shallowly, not wishing to commit suicide, but to only numb the pain in my mind, and only in the early morning and late night when no one was around to find me out. I would sit alone in the dim light slitting my wrists and the tears slid down my cheeks, but after a while they dried up and didn't fall. Afterwards I would run my arms under water, which also stung at the beginning, wrap them with bandages, and cover the bandages with arm warmers to hide the evidence.

This worked for a while, but one night when my mother was out I stayed out too late, or should I say too early.

Smack, smack, smack! Drip, drip, drip. The blood from my uncovered, unwrapped, unwashed wrists dripped down my arms and fell to the forest floor. I kick and punched the tree that I was 'fighting,' but then something happened. Everything began to get fuzzy around the edges, followed by the world beginning to spin at a dizzying speed.

"Yuki!" called a voice threw the haze of my mind. I turned my head to the side slightly to face the speaker. "Yuki!" cried Shikamaru again and he began to rush to my side calling "I've found her!" to who I now know to be Asuma-sensei and other Konoha shinobi. The blackness surrounded me and I could feel a pair of warm arms holding me. There were voices, so many voices, but all of their words simply slipped right over me. The blackness enveloped my mind and body completely and I slipped into unconsciousness.

Even thought unconscious, I remember vividly the dream I had. I was in a tunnel. It was dark; not the kind of black darkness of oblivion, it was the kind of dark when you close your eyes when you are in your room at night; the kind of dark darkness where you're still able to see slightly. I walked along this dark tunnel, not really caring where I was going, or when I would get there, but knowing that I would get there eventually. Eventually a light started to immerge at one end, the end I was walking too. And next to the light at the end of the tunnel I could see a figure, a figure I knew all too well. I tried to walk more quickly, but my feet wouldn't pull off of the floor as easily as they had before. It was like trying to run through water – far too difficult. The figure made its way closer to me, seeming to glide over the inky black floor of the tunnel. Eventually, after what felt like hours, but was probably only a matter of minutes, we reached each other and I flung my arms around my father's torso pulling him close to me.

"Papa!" I cried and tears, tears of happiness, spilled down my cheeks. "Oh Papa!"

"Shh," he soothed. He stoked my hair the exact same way he had when I was seven. "Shh." My sobs quieted and he began to speak. "Yuki, you have to go back."

"What?" My heart felt as if it had been sewn back together and then ripped apart again. "No! I–"

He held a finger to my lips and I stopped talking. "Yuki," he began again. "You're too young to die. You have your whole life to lead ahead of you. There are people there who need you, who want you back. Especially your mother. I don't think she could survive losing us both."

"I don't want to lose you again!" I blurted.

"I will always be with you right here." He held his hand up to his heart.

"But–" I began again, but my father interrupted me yet again.

"Listen," he whispered.

I was silent for a moment listening hard and a soft sound came upon my ears. "Yuki! Oh Yuki!"

My heart felt as if it was being squeezed. "It's Mom," I whispered and glanced back over my shoulder the way I'd come from. _'She needs me,'_ I thought to myself. I looked back up at my father's face with a pleading expression on mine. "Please don't make me choose between you!"

A sad smile played on my father's face. "I'll make it easy for you," he murmured and pressed his lips to my forehead.

The floor seemed to move under my feet pulling me away from my father.

"I love you," he called after me.

Tears started spilling down my face again. "I love you too, Papa!" I called to him and then turned around and began running down the tunnel, back towards the echoing sound of my mother's frantic, concern filled voice.

I don't remember what happened next, but from what I've been told, I woke up and doctors fussed over me for a while. I was doped up on meds, so I was totally out of it. My memory kicks in what must have been a week later. I was transferred to a "special" hospital with "kids like me". That meaning other people with mental problems, like trying to kill themselves or their families. I was there for a while, maybe a few months, before I was allowed to have visitors other than my mom.

It was a Saturday. The only reason I know this is because visiting hours were on Saturdays and Sundays and my mom hadn't come the day before. Therefore it was a Saturday. And on that Saturday I had four new visitors: Asuma-sensei, Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru.

It was really awkward and quiet in my room at first. But that's how it always is when you visit people at the hospital. Awkward and quiet. Eventually Ino broke the silence by braking down into tears and throwing herself at me. She didn't really say much, but a few words around her sobs made sense.

Tentatively I wrapped my arms around her. "It's fine Ino," I murmured. "I'll be fine."

Ino sobbed a bit more, but eventually quieted. And the awkwardness returned.

Eventually my mom showed up and the doctors sent the others out. They claimed I wasn't stable enough to handle five people at once.

The weeks passed, and it became less awkward to be around them and them around me while I was in the hospital. Eventually I was moved into a different "hospital" which was more like a special living house. You were barely allowed to do anything without adult supervision, but you had more freedom and better visiting hours. Well, just Friday afternoons were added, but still.

By then I had become much more acquainted with calendars. It was a Saturday. And I had one visitor. Shikamaru had come on his own this time. Usually he came with one of the others, usually Choji, but not today. Today it was just him.

"Yuki," the nurse chirped, "you have a visitor."

"Mm-kay," I replied but didn't raise my nose from my book.

"Just go on in, sweetheart," she chirped at my visitor.

My visitor came in and tentatively perched on the edge of my bed.

"Just a sec, kay, Ino?" I asked.

Ino didn't reply, so I finished my paragraph and put the book on my bedside counter. I looked up at Ino, just to notice that it wasn't Ino sitting on my bed. It was Shikamaru.

"Oh! Sorry, Shikamaru-kun. Ino usually sits there, not you." Shikamaru began getting up. "No, it's fine. I don't mind." Shikamaru settled back down, but still didn't say anything. "What's up?"

"Do you have any idea how troublesome you re, Yuki?" Shikamaru inquired. "You scared me half to death. Don't you ever do that again. You hear me? _Ever!_"

I stared at Shikamaru and felt tears pricking at my eyes. "I'm sorry, Shikamaru. I never meant to hurt any of you. I'm so, so sorry!" The tears started trickling down my cheeks.

Shikamaru let out a sigh. "So troublesome," he muttered to himself as he scooted to sit directly next to me. Wrapping an arm around me, he pulled me into him. "I didn't mean to snap at you. Sorry." Shikamaru leaned down and pressed his lips onto the top of my head.

I froze for a moment and then looked up at Shikamaru's face. He was blushing slightly, but he wasn't looking away. Instead his eyes were boring into mine. My blush heated my face, spreading as far as my ears; . I smiled shyly at him and glanced away. Shikamaru reached for my chin and tiled my face up. He pressed his lips to mine lightly. After a moment I began kissing him back.

It was a sweet kiss; it was the perfect 'first kiss' kiss. And it was all mine. And Shikamaru was all mine. And the world was looking a little brighter.


End file.
